POINTers IN PERSON Minutes
Chapter # 10 Central Texas/Austin
Lin ONOFRIO Brinkman (#1388) opened the May 21, 2003 monthly meeting at
Round Rock Library at 6:30 pm with 15 members attending. She shared a
thank-you card from the family of Florence Abbatista, mother of member Tony
ABBATISTA (#2641).
Lin brought photos and gave a review of the Italian Cultural Association of
Austin’s first St. Joseph’s table event. The event was very well done. She
passed around a brochure on the Federation of Genealogical Societies and
Florida State Genealogical Society 2003 Conference brought by Marilyn
MANISCALCO Henley (#1653). The conference will be held in Orlando September
3-6. The PIP dues list was also passed around.
Laurie GUGINO Riester (#3878) recently received a letter from a Salvatore Gugino, who is a 44-year-old attorney in Palermo. Salvatore was going through things in his parents’ home in Valledolmo, Palermo, Sicily, as they are both now deceased, and he found a letter that Laurie had written to them before her family’s 1999 trip there. (Laurie had written to all the Gugino families in the town prior to that trip, hoping to make a connection.) Salvatore commended Laurie for being interested in her roots, and said that he suspects that he and Laurie are related, because of the fact that both their surnames have one “g” in the middle (Gugino), and not two, as others spell it (Guggino). Laurie was thrilled to receive the letter and will be writing back to Salvatore soon.
Lynn LECROPANE (#4728) mentioned that there are still 3 openings for the Austin Genealogical Society sponsored tip to Salt Lake City in October. Also, she received an email recently from someone who found her name in the POINT directory. This person has family in Tarsia and Terranove, like Lynn, and she has been there several times. They have two maiden names in common, and their families settled in the same area in Brooklyn.
Bill Brinkman passed around a button he had found with a photo of his father ’s parents on it. Bill guesses that the photo of his grandparents was taken around 1935.
Scott Patrick (#4619) has had quite a genealogy breakthrough since the last time he reported to the group. Scott is researching the names MOTTO and GARAGUSI, and he had been finding little information on these names. However, over time, Scott had begun noticing the name Vincent Garagusi popping up in various places – searches, etc. Scott finally decided to call Vincent, and in comparing notes on family members, they found that they are definitely related. Vincent has lots of information on various family members and events and talking with him is helping Scott to piece together quite a few details of his family tree. Scott has prepared a full family tree, as he now knows it, and has sent a copy to his mother for corrections, and then will send one to Vincent. Scott plans to continue his contact with Vincent and also to contact other family members.
Joe MASTRANGELO (#2614) shared with the group a list of genealogical keywords put together by the COI (Communes of Italy). Joe continues to work on Putignano birth records, and currently has 2040 birth records in his database. In going through birth records, Joe recently found a couple of records that, although they were not for relatives, were especially interesting. One was a birth record that had a notation of a marriage on it, with the marriage having taken place about a year after the birth. The notation turned out to be for the marriage of the baby’s parents. The other interesting record was a “certificate of recognition”. This turned out to be a record recognizing the father of the baby who apparently was not married to baby’s mother.
Marie Mastrangelo mentioned to the group that her father kept all of the letters her Norwegian grandfather sent to him from Norway. Marie now has those letters and has found someone who can translate them.
Jeanie MARSALIA (#4251) brought catalogs containing some interesting Italian items, information on community school Italian classes at Westwood High School, and information on an Emeril Live show on Italian breads, to share with the group. Jeanie’s new boss is half Italian.
Lin welcomed Laura SABATINO (#4256), who was visiting from Connecticut. Laura works for the Italian American Historical Society of Connecticut. There are about 300 people in the society, and currently a number of them have taken/are taking one of two Italian classes being offered, Conversational Italian and Beginner’s Italian. Laura brought a “cheeses of Italy” towel to show the group. She mentioned that the New Haven school records are being inventoried, and that she’d found school records for Virginia MACRI Gerick’s (#2730) brother. Laura brought many other records from New Haven, including a city directory for 1910. She also brought a card from Ralph McElroy Translation Company in Austin, which does translations for many languages. Laura and Lin entertained the group with stories of their experiences playing “tombola”, the colorful Italian equivalent of bingo. It is played only on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
The meeting adjourned at 9:00pm.
Meeting notes submitted by Laurie GUGINO Riester (#3878).
Our next meeting is Saturday, June 21. Our schedule and past minutes are on
our web site:
http://www.main.org/pip10/